


Starry Night, Portrait Hung

by lucdarling



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Chicago (City), Falling In Love, First Meetings, Fluff, Gay Billy Hargrove, M/M, POV Billy Hargrove, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sibling Love, Soft Billy Hargrove
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22642186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/pseuds/lucdarling
Summary: Billy picks up a paintbrush for the first time when he's nearly 14. His mother has been in the ground for eight months.The guidance counselor strongly suggests he needs an art credit for graduation and shop class won't meet the requirement. He tells her what he thinks of that idea and ends up signed up for a full year of art and a spate of Saturday detentions.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 28
Kudos: 235





	Starry Night, Portrait Hung

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thursdayknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thursdayknight/gifts).



> Title from "Vincent" by Don McLean.
> 
> This complete AU is based on a tumblrfic by gideongrace ([x](https://gideongrace.tumblr.com/post/190707614304/its-been-years-since-they-were-in-high-school)) which inspired me to write 500ish words of First Meeting from Steve's POV... and then I wrote ten times that about Billy. Everything is fine.

Billy picks up a paintbrush for the first time when he's nearly 14. His mother has been in the ground for eight months.

The guidance counselor strongly suggests he needs an art credit for graduation and shop class won't meet the requirement. He tells her what he thinks of that idea and ends up signed up for a full year of art and a spate of Saturday detentions.

It turns out Billy is good at art. He's not the best, there's no district awards anytime soon but something about the smell of the room, the hush when he walks in clicks something into place deep inside him.

He learns about perspective and shadow, why his painting of Van Gogh's third version of Sunflowers looks so flat. It takes him a full semester and three after school lessons to get it right.

Billy gives his painting of the sunflowers to Susan for her birthday and manages to hug her back for the first time without flinching in the years she's known him.

Neil slaps him that night and says art is for sissies. Billy nods, says yes sir, and signs up for more art classes in high school.

He's not the typical art nerd, even if they all smoke like chimneys. Billy keeps his denim jacket and shows up to the art room sweating after baseball practice each spring. He doesn't say much to his classmates, taking a seat in the back and paying attention to the lectures and slides. He loves that there doesn't have to be a right answer, like math class demands even though he excels in that too.

Graduation creeps closer and Billy doesn't know what he's going to do. When his father says they're moving in a month to the middle of nowhere, Indiana, Billy stays in the art room for almost the entire weekend. His hair goes limp and greasy as he yells into the silence and paints broad dark strokes across stretched canvas. He's had the key to the room for a while now, teacher pulling him aside when his shirt slid up and showed yellowing green bruises. There was a brief murmur of something about a safe space once his classmates had filed out; Billy sneered but took the key.

Billy doesn't move to Indiana, spending what would have been moving day in surgery to fix his fractured leg after his father finds him swapping spit with Manuel and his work boot comes down after Billy's fallen to the floor of the living room. He doesn't actually remember the night. Susan presses charges, Max snots all over his shirt and Billy spends half of the fall semester of his junior year on crutches. He doesn't see his father ever again.

He continues to paint and finds that he likes seascapes, feeling himself in each curl of wave and highlighting the water's depths with flecks of white and light blue. He can’t bring himself to paint people.

Graduation comes and Billy walks across the stage. Susan and Max cheer, take him out for milkshakes and greasy burgers because Susan still can't cook for shit. His stepmother slides an envelope across the table while Max bounces eagerly next to her.

It's a scholarship, almost a full ride to CalArts. Billy's mouth drops open. Susan explains that she had worked with his art teacher on the application and portfolio. Max beams at him and Billy's throat clears enough for him to grit out his thanks.

College for art is like his high school class on acid, everything moving in double time and everyone so full of themselves it's a wonder they can breathe through the paint fumes and self-importance. He spends his weekends in Santa Monica, soaking up the sun and normalcy when he's not locked in his studio.

The check for his first painting sold at the undergraduate art show is high enough that Billy feels sick holding it. He doesn't paint for money, he does it because otherwise the waves that mirror the beating of his heart will grow too large, overwhelm him and drag him with the fierceness of a riptide. 

He cashes it and gives half to Susan, folding her hand over the bundle when she tries to give it back. He stays in town through Max's graduation, painting her as a warrior reminiscent of Wonder Woman but on a skateboard in modern clothes. Then Billy moves to Santa Monica for real, spending days wrapped in his ideas until he can breathe again and using alumni connections to get the gallery showings he needs to afford food and surfboard wax.

He spends a few months in residence at a soulless gallery in Seattle, leaves when the contract is up and moves east to Chicago. There's no surf but Lake Michigan is large, too large to be called a lake Billy feels. The city hums, alive and moving at all hours but not in the frantic pace of New York City which he visited on spring break a few years ago. He misses the sand and pier lights, but Chicago doesn’t seem too difficult to settle down in.

Billy gets an apartment out the outskirts of Boystown, done hiding. He paints his window for every Pride Parade and after three consecutive years, a journalist from the Sun-Times knocks on his door to talk about it. Seeing his name in print still makes Billy's stomach swim but he's learned enough to know that press can be a good thing. He uses it as a launching pad and gets a gallery showing at a little place in River North.

He's given three months to produce enough paintings for the two room gallery. Unfortunately, there's a truly awful week-long nightmare that puts Billy into a sleep deficit that makes everything he produces afterward dark and angry. He keeps the paintings tucked behind a sheet once they're dry, and tries his best to forget about them. He paints, tears his canvas in a fit of rage and paints some more. It is an ugly cycle that ends with him collapsed in the middle of his studio, heartbeat thrumming in his ears.

Max calls and talks him down, coaxing him into flying to Susan's bungalow in Northern California for a long weekend. He sleeps for most of it, salt air and familiar red hair soothing something he can't name.

Susan seems happy, dipping a toe in the dating pool every now and again. Billy hears the updates from Max, pretends he doesn't care but admits that if Susan called, he would drop everything for the woman who took him in, who helped him become something more than a smear on the wall. He would do more than that for his little sister, but she’s a survivor like him and doesn’t need help in the same way, would never think to ask for it. Susan is softer around the edges, hiding her spine of steel. Max is a barely contained wildfire in comparison.

He goes back to Chicago, and paints a series of seascapes in the first two days. He leaves blue paint on his sheets when he falls face first into bed after they're finished and has to spend the next day doing laundry. The next few weeks are brighter, sun warming his bare feet in the afternoon, and Billy sings along to the records that shared room in his Camaro with his oil paints and brushes when he drove out here years earlier.

This gallery showing isn't his first event, but it is the first one that's just Billy. The dress shirt that Susan bought for him is soft and he runs a hand through his curls before hopping on the ‘L’.

He shows up a scant half hour before the invitees, ruffling Little Byers's shaggy hair as he passes by.

"Everything in shape?" he asks and Will gives him a thumbs up. Billy grins, just this side of too sharp. "Great, I'll leave it in your hands and head out the back for a smoke." He stays outside, watching the office drones stop off at the bar across the street and vaguely wishing he could join them until the owner chivvies him inside.

He feels jittery despite the nicotine hit, nerves buzzing as the crowd continues to grow. The owner is pleased even though Billy refuses point blank to be trotted out like a show pony. He wanders the crowd instead, anonymous because the only picture of himself alongside his artwork appeared in exactly one of the undergraduate galleries back in California.

He broke the series up, the first seascape full of light like a perfect summer day hanging across the entrance. Will thought something bright would draw the eye, and Billy liked the idea of fooling all the people with too much money, the people who pay his electricity bill and studio rent, thinking the gallery would be something suited for their empty walls. The deeper the person walks into the gallery, the darker it gets. The other seascapes, the ocean in winter and on a cloudy day are at the end, like the first breath after resurfacing from a dive. _Brimborn_ is the showstopper, an abandoned factory building full of darkness and the hunger that Billy feels when nothing is turning out the way he envisions it. 

He watches a lithe man stare, eyes the size of saucers as he looks at the ocean in the summer. Billy’s eyes track him as he moves across the room, not speaking to anyone but spending long minutes at each work. Billy smirks to himself and goes to chat him up. 

“You like it?” Billy asks, like a fool. He covers it up with a sharp smile when the man spins to face him. He’s gorgeous, big brown eyes and coiffed hair.

“I think so,” the man says and Billy realizes they’re standing in front of _Brimborn_. Fuck. Why couldn’t the man have been stuck in front of anything else.

“It was a hell of a nightmare,” Billy admits with a shrug and doesn’t know why he’s decided to tell this stranger. “I don’t think I slept for a week. The nicer pictures are up front, gotta draw the people in.”

The man shakes his head, talking about Will and someone named Dustin had told him about the arrangement.

“Little Byers sometimes has good ideas,” Billy says casually, like Will’s ideas aren’t crafted miracles and inspiration. “I’m Billy.” He introduces himself. It’s clear the man in front of him doesn’t put the name together with the BH signature and it makes Billy smirk. “If you’re interested, we could do a full tour?” He really wants to hear this man speak about his art and how it makes him feel. He wants to know his name, roll it around in his mouth like fine wine.

The man stutters but agrees. Billy takes his arm at the elbow and spins him back to the ocean. He calls him pretty boy and cracks a joke about using a paintbrush instead of a pen.

“I’m Steve,” the man says, finally giving Billy his name when they’re in front of the summer waves.

“Steve,” Billy repeats with a smirk. “What if I just call you pretty boy instead?” He wants to see a flush on those pale cheeks and he’s not disappointed. He wants to reach out and touch, learn how far down that blush can go. Billy wants a lot of things.

He ushers Steve around the room, letting Steve’s words drip into his ears and fill him up like a fizzy drink. Steve gets the emotions Billy pours into his art, and stares at _Shelf Life_ for a long time.

“This makes me sad,” Steve says haltingly, eyes sweeping over the items Billy painted on the shelf. There’s a Little League trophy, a cassette with a peeling label, a stack of books that everyone reads in English class. “It’s nostalgic, obviously, with the award and the tape but,” he taps a long finger with bitten nails to his lips and Billy waits for the rest.

“Oh,” Steve breathes and Billy knows what he’s finally seen. The red stain dripping off the corner of the shelf, how the items are just slightly tilted like the shelf had been bumped into. He turns to Billy and stares hard, brown eyes searching over his face. It feels like they’re the only two people in the gallery for the hush between them. Billy knows he won’t find the scar, it’s hidden in his curls.

“It’s not paint,” Steve says slowly and his hand slips away from Billy’s arm.

“Technically it is, but that’s not what it was,” Billy agrees numbly and wonders if this is what it is like to be flayed raw. He put his old reality in this painting for unexplainable reasons, even though it’s been over a decade since he had bruises he didn’t earn participating in a fight or in a pick up game. “My dad was an asshole.”

Steve’s hand finds his own and squeezes lightly. Billy has no idea why he’s pouring his life story out, to this pretty boy who’s friends with Will and seems comfortable enough floating among the art patrons gathered and probably grew up with nannies. Billy squeezes back and they move on to the next painting.

The night picks up after that, Billy manages to make Steve laugh twice and it feels like a victory. They only let go of each other when Will comes up to them when the gallery is emptying. 

“Owner wants to talk to you, Billy.” 

“Is there enough to get a pack of smokes and pay my rent on time?” Billy asks and Will shrugs.

“The intern doesn’t get to know those sorts of things, I get to pick up the trash because rich people are the fucking worst.” Billy chuckles and gives him a high five in agreement. Will drags Steve away as Billy heads into the office and sits down to discuss the night’s takings.

He did well. He did really well, in fact. Almost half of the work has been sold on the opening night, which is unexpected. The owner is gleeful and Billy hides his excitement under a solid handshake and a promise to have ten more paintings in four, maybe five months for a second exhibition. It’s much more than he expected.

Billy leaves the office, mind already on what he can do for those ten pieces. He thinks he’s about to break his own rule of not including bodies in his work. Steve is very pretty.

Steve is nowhere to be seen. 

“Dustin had to go home and Steve will always be Mr. Mom,” Will explains when Billy gets the courage to ask, throwing tiny hors d'oeuvre plates in the trash bag he holds in one hand. “We all grew up together. Steve was like, the babysitter in Hawkins.”

Billy grunts as he pulls on his leather jacket. “Is he-” he waggles his eyebrows and it draws a laugh out of Will. Both of them are pushing up against the kind of tiredness where the night’s edges blur, too many people in a small space. Billy still feels cracked open after meeting Steve and baring his insides under gallery lights.

“I don’t out people without their consent,” Will grins, sharp but somehow still sweet. It’s not a no and Billy smiles all the way home.

The gallery is hosting Billy’s work for two weeks. He doesn’t have to be there every night, but he shows up the second and third nights in case Steve wanders in again.

He doesn’t show and Billy tells himself he's not disappointed. The next to last night there’s a flash of red hair and arms wrapped tight around his chest before he can do more than plant his feet against the weight. Billy grins and drops a kiss on Max’s temple.

“You came!” He had sent her the invite and never heard back, but grad school seems like a special kind of hell. They barely saw one another, even though Max goes to school in Rogers Park; only a forty minute train ride away from Billy’s apartment.

“Of course I did, jackass.” Max smacks his arm and Billy laughs, uncaring that his volume draws looks from everyone else. “I brought friends, too. Be nice.”

“I’m always nice,” he retorts and she rolls her eyes.

“We both know that’s a lie.” Max sticks her tongue out like she’s not in her twenties and pulls him over to a group of people her age, Will Byers among them.

“Even on your night off, you can’t stay away?” Billy asks and nudges the intern. 

Will elbows him back. “I’m here to support you, asshole.” The other people look a bit shocked at the language and Billy grins.

Before he can say something else that will make Max hit him again, the door opens and Steve steps into the gallery with two other people who look around their own age. Billy’s heart skips as their eyes meet. It’s been over a week and he’s still dreaming of doe eyes and long fingers.

“Hey,” Steve calls out and lifts a hand. Billy slings an arm around his shoulders in greeting and smiles wider when Steve leans in. “This is Nancy and Jonathan,” Steve introduces and then the rest of Max’s friends are saying their names. Billy’s met Jonathan a handful of times when Will has closed the gallery but Nancy, who he’s only heard about, looks soft in a turtleneck and herringbone coat. Billy has a feeling she could pack a punch though, it’s something in her eyes. He wonders what was in the water at Hawkins that all these people have such similar traits. More than anything, he wants to put charcoal to paper and try to capture that glint.

The group scatters around the room, Max hanging close to the curly haired kid Steve brought along the first night and a young man, Lucas, who must be the one she talks about all the time. 

“No tour this time?” Steve sidles up next to him.

“You already got one,” Billy says. “Want a coffee instead?”

Steve blinks, surprised at the non sequitur. “Sure,” he agrees and Billy brews it in the gallery office. He hands a cup over and sips at his own.

“I got asked for more pieces,” Billy says. “Would you, uh-” he breaks off and feels his cheeks darken. “Could I sketch you?”

Steve chokes, eyes wide when they meet Billy’s. “Me?”

“If you don’t mind.” Billy smiles and feeling brazen, adds,“Clothes optional,” his lips turning into a wolfish grin. Steve smirks back and the tension between them draws taut. 

Billy digs a business card out of his back pocket, breaking eye contact before his heart can beat out of his chest. “My studio address is on there, just give me a call when you can come by. I practically live there.”

“I thought that was what most artists did?” Steve asks, taking the card and running his thumb along the edge. “Nancy is always complaining about dragging Jon out of his darkroom. I think he might have a sleeping bag in there, to be honest.”

Billy shrugs like he’s never fallen asleep in his studio and doesn’t have a cot for when the twenty-minute walk to his apartment feels too far. “You know us artists. If we’re not truly dedicated, can we call ourselves artists?” It gets the laugh he was aiming for.

“Hey,” Max calls his attention. “Tell me if I get a discount.” She’s in front of _Shelf Life_ and Billy stomps over with a frown. Steve follows in his wake. Max frowns right back and the boys next to her look confused.

“What about it?” Billy growls and there’s familiar anger licking up his spine.

“Can I get a discount?” Max repeats, crossing her arms. “It speaks to me.”

“Not on that one.” Billy responds, tugging at a curl, at the curl that hides the scar. “I’ll paint you something nicer, lighter.” Dustin is peering at the painting like it’s going to speak to him if he looks hard enough.

“It’s a shelf,” Lucas interjects. Billy and Max tell him to shut up at the same time and Steve disguises his laugh as a sudden fit of coughing.

“I don’t want nice or pretty,” Max points out, face settling into a glare. Billy had almost managed to forget how stubborn she could be. “I want the truth. And I want to put it in my office.”

“Your office?” Now Billy and Lucas’s voices are echoes of one another. Max turns to Lucas with a smile.

“Yeah, I got an offer with the Children’s Hospital to be a social worker.” She turns back to Billy. “So I want it for my office.”

Billy sighs. “Why do you want to look at it every single day?” Max shrugs. “I know you haven’t forgotten.” Steve steps closer to him when he utters the statement in a flat voice, arm pressed against Billy’s in a warm line, grounding him in the storm starting to rise up in his gut.

“Of course not,” Max says heatedly. “I think it could help, and obviously your work is loads better than the stupid abstracts or children’s cartoons the director told me to pick from. I will scream if I have to look at those.”

“Obviously I’m better than that shit,” Billy acquiesces with a wry smile and Max bumps his shoulder when she pulls Lucas over to the seascapes, her hand intertwined with his. They both know she’s won the argument and he’ll settle up with the gallery owner.

Steve’s hand brushes his own, little fingers linked for the space of a heartbeat and Billy turns to him. “I’m gonna head home, but I’ll call you.”

“Looking forward to it.” Billy returns. Steve grins dumbly and nearly trips over his own feet when he leaves the gallery.

Billy sees him three days later, rain-soaked despite the umbrella he carries in one hand. He turns the electric heater on and throws a blanket at Steve.

“I didn’t actually plan for you to strip, but you might be more comfortable out of those wet clothes. What happened, was your umbrella blown inside out?”

Steve stops wringing the water out of his shirt and starts ranting about trucks and puddles. Billy pretends he isn’t watching the water drops slide down his chest. Billy nods in the right places but he’s already focused on the paper in front of him.

Steve continues oblivious, his voice bright and washing over Billy as he sketches Steve’s hands; the mole he wants to lick; his lips. He turns to a new page and dedicates it to Steve’s eyes, the bridge of his nose, the curve of his cheek that Billy wants to caress. He feels drunk, the two of them finally alone. Steve stops talking when Billy lifts his head to look at him.

“You okay, man?” Steve asks, eyebrows knit with worry.

“Yeah, why?”

“You look like you want to eat me alive.” Billy shakes his head and looks away. Steve’s not far off, but Billy’s usually not so obvious about it.

“I mean,” Steve spreads his hands. “If it would help you uh, learn. Maybe you do best if you took a hands on approach, but what do I know?” He winks and it looks ridiculous. Billy can’t believe he has fallen so hard, so fast for a dork.

“Can I touch you?” Billy asks and sets his sketchpad on his seat. His voice is hoarse.

“Yeah,” Steve leans back and Billy follows him down, pressing him against the cot. Their lips meet and it’s everything Billy wanted from the minute he first saw Steve.

The rest of the afternoon passes, becoming early evening before either of them realizes it.

Steve comes back the next day and Billy manages to get two pages filled in his notebook before they’re back on the cot, making out until they’ve both got beard burn on their necks and swollen lips.

The third day, Billy meets Steve at his studio and takes him home. His apartment isn’t much bigger than the studio, but it’s got a real bed and a kitchen so they at least have the option of something other than take out. 

Billy sketches Steve while he’s asleep, mouth open and drooling onto Billy’s pillow. It becomes the first painting for the second exhibition: a rumpled sheet and the impression of a body like the person has just left and will return at any minute.

The second painting is Steve-inspired, again, the swoop of his hair seen in the curling leaves he paints in orange and red. Billy manages to focus on other things for paintings three through five, old world nature growing through the cracks of the city sidewalks and peering around the corner of buildings he passes by every day. Steve finds his way into the sixth when Billy can’t stop drawing the abstract pattern of his moles. They make up the night sky above a forest and he uses gilt leaf to make them shine. They’ve been together officially for two months and seeing each other for three.

The painting is missing something, though, and Billy sets it aside in favor of painting an ocean, vast and wide. He doesn’t feel like he’s treading water any longer, but that he’s floating gently in a sea that cradles him. He guesses being in love makes everyone a little stupid.

Thinking about love gives him inspiration again, and he paints his Camaro. It’s the only car he’s had, a 1979 Z28 that’s carried him from high school to college and out to Chicago. He parks it in the shed that passes for a garage behind his apartment, drives it on weekends when he needs to get out of the city.

He paints his car in black and white, tail lights throwing shades of grey on a road that looks like an oil spill. The palette is washed out and it feels like a grave. Billy doesn’t hate it but it’s going into the back up pile along with the other haunting ones.

Billy carefully leans it against the wall to dry and starts over again, brighter colors like the Camaro in its heyday and red better suited for the lipstick of those 1940s stars. He fogs the windows with grey swirls of smoke and heavy breaths, definitely not thinking of the past weekend spent with Steve, parked at a quarry they did a U-turn to pull into. It brings a smirk to his lips once it’s finished.

Steve takes him to the Lincoln Park Zoo when Billy’s forgotten their planned coffee dates twice in a row and Steve finds him fast asleep on the studio cot, paintbrush dropped from his hand.

“You need to get out of the paint fumes, get some fresh air.” Steve waves his arms as he speaks.

“It smells like manure,” Billy says petulantly. To be fair, they are standing next to the farmyard and petting zoo area.

“You’re a child,” Steve retorts but laughs anyway and they stroll slowly around the pond. He makes a joke about Billy’s curls being leonine which turns into a shoving match and then they’re nearly escorted out by security because someone thought they were about to fight.

They wander around the conservatory for a bit just to stay out of the wind. Billy has painted a number of flowers and wonders out loud about doing a study of orchids once the exhibition is over. He likes the way the colors bleed into one another.

Coffee in a diner on Halsted turns into dinner at a bar with Jon and Nancy. Billy thinks they’re alright, always willing to talk art with Jonathan or listen about whatever underground punk band he should listen to next. Nancy is a little harder to make friends with, Billy swears she spent the first month he and Steve are officially dating glaring and threatening to kneecap him with a bat if he hurts Steve. Billy can admire that level of loyalty.

He spends the time in between the arrival of drinks and actual food sketching on a napkin, thinking about that threat and what else could be fought. He doesn’t often go for the fantastic, fully blames it on Will muttering about his upcoming D&D campaign.

Billy taps the pencil against the napkin, lost in thought.

“Nails," Jon says suddenly, looking over the table. It catches Billy by surprise and he raises an eyebrow.

"It needs nails," He gestures to the bat in the sketch. "Otherwise it's just an object."

"That's kinda the point," Billy says with a laugh behind his teeth. "Ordinary and still fighting the dark. What would a bat with nails even look like?" He shakes his head and promptly forgets about the conversation because their food is finally being brought out and Steve is grinning at the idea of a burrito the size of his head. Billy’s eye is drawn to his smile like a moth to the flame.

A week later, Nancy and Jonathan show up at his studio, Steve in tow. Billy slides the door open and jumps back when something metal and sharp is thrust into his face.

"What the fuck, man?" He definitely does not yelp. Jonathan grins and it changes his face. Billy's fingers twitch out of instinct, wanting to capture what even he knows is a rare sight for someone who isn’t Nancy.

"Nail bat. Jonathan made it for you." Nancy announces, sweeping past him and into the empty space where Billy sometimes lies on the floor when he's feeling overwhelmed with deadlines. She takes it from Jonathan and gives it a few practice swings.

Billy squints, the bat reflecting pinpricks of light onto the brick wall. 

"Hang on," he says and practically runs over to the window, drawing the sheer curtain over it. Steve helps him get the other window and Jonathan is already on the other side of the room doing the same, giving the studio muted afternoon light.

Nancy swings the bat again and Billy hisses out a breath. This is what he needs.

"You know you're gonna swing for like, an hour while I get this down on paper?" He checks with her and she smiles, blinding. 

"What do you think I brought the boys for?" Steve tries to mount a protest, but Billy's laughter drowns him out.

The three of them take turns swinging the nail bat for Billy's reference sketches. The two men’s orbit around Nancy reminds him of binary stars. He’s not jealous, he knows the role Nancy played in getting Steve away from his hometown, and is quietly grateful. Instead of saying that out loud, Billy cracks a joke about The Breakfast Club and lets them argue if Steve is the jock or rich kid while his pencil scratches across the page.

The final painting is the lean lines of Steve’s back, muscles contracting as the bat is raised. A shadow menaces to the right of his profile and the nails catch the light of the moon Billy colors in soft yellows and whites; the gold-leaf stars twinkling above.

Billy names it _Protector_.


End file.
